UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State faculty and staff are invited to submit nominations for the Earthshot Prize 2023, an international competition aimed at identifying the most promising solutions to environmental challenges. Faculty and staff are encouraged to either self-nominate or to nominate other researchers or projects that they see as strong examples of promising solutions.
The internal deadline to submit is Friday, Jan. 20, 2023, through InfoReady.
“The Earthshot Prize is based on John F. Kennedy’s 1962 ‘Moonshot’ challenge, which inspired scientists and society to come together to send people safely to the moon and back,” said Erica Smithwick, one of two official nominators for the University. “We now have a new set of challenges to steward a sustainable Earth, and our Penn State researchers are advancing some of these most promising solutions.”
Penn State is one of about 300 organizations from over 80 countries that were invited to submit nominations, including non-profits, foundation, investment, corporate, academic, governmental and community-led organizations.
“This is an opportunity for Penn State researchers to showcase the important work they are doing,” said Lara Fowler, Penn State’s interim chief sustainability officer and other official University nominator. “We encourage the Penn State community to submit proposals because our strong interdisciplinary collaborations generate a wealth of viable and scalable energy and environmental solution-based research, and one of those might just be the next Earthshot Prize.”
The Earthshot Prize is funded by The Royal Foundation, the primary philanthropic and charitable vehicle for The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William and Catherine Elizabeth Middleton, in London, England.
Launched in November 2020, the Earthshot Prize awards five, £1 million (approximately $1.2 million) prizes each year for the next 10 years, providing at least 50 solutions to these problems by 2030.
The program is broken into five "earthshots," or categories:
- Protect and restore nature
- Clean our air
- Revive our oceans
- Build a waste-free world
- Fix our climate
Each category looks to accelerate simple, ambitious and scalable projects, including new technologies, systems, policies and solutions, that inspire collective action. Additionally, the Earthshot Prize is seeking nominations and will prioritize Indigenous, women-led solutions; Web3.0 enabled solutions; nominations that unlock new financial models which value nature; and out-of-the-box, blue sky solutions that have transformative impact potential.
Submissions will be reviewed by the Penn State nomination committee. The committee will work with the principal investigator to complete their nomination by the Earthshot Prize’s Jan. 31, 2023, nomination deadline.
Questions concerning the Earthshot nomination process can be directed to Erica Smithwick (smithwick@psu.edu) or Lara Fowler (lbf10@psu.edu).